The Lagoda Was Lying There, And Slipped At The First Alarm,
And In Such Haste That She Was Obliged To Leave Her Launch Behind Her
At Anchor.
The little boat rode it out for several hours, pitching at
her anchor, and standing with her stern up almost perpendicularly.
The men told me that they watched her till towards night, when
she snapped her cable and drove up over the breakers, high and
dry upon the beach.
On board the Pilgrim, everything went on regularly, each one
trying to get along as smoothly as possible; but the comfort of
the voyage was evidently at an end. "That is a long lane which
has no turning" - -"Every dog must have his day, and mine will
come by-and-by" - and the like proverbs, were occasionally quoted;
but no one spoke of any probable end to the voyage, or of Boston,
or anything of the kind; or if he did, it was only to draw out the
perpetual, surly reply from his shipmate - "Boston, is it? You may
thank your stars if you ever see that place. You had better have
your back sheathed, and your head coppered, and your feet shod,
and make out your log for California for life!" or else something of
this kind - "Before you get to Boston the hides will wear the hair
off your head, and you'll take up all your wages in clothes, and
won't have enough left to buy a wig with!"
The flogging was seldom if ever alluded to by us, in the forecastle.
If any one was inclined to talk about it, the others, with a delicacy
which I hardly expected to find among them, always stopped him,
or turned the subject. But the behavior of the two men who were
flogged toward one another showed a delicacy and a sense of honor,
which would have been worthy of admiration in the highest walks of
life. Sam knew that the other had suffered solely on his account,
and in all his complaints, he said that if he alone had been flogged,
it would have been nothing; but that he never could see that man
without thinking what had been the means of bringing that disgrace
upon him; and John never, by word or deed, let anything escape him
to remind the other that it was by interfering to save his shipmate,
that he had suffered.
Having got all our spare room filled with hides, we hove up our anchor
and made sail for San Diego. In no operation can the disposition of
a crew be discovered better than in getting under weigh.
Where things are "done with a will," every one is like a cat aloft:
sails are loosed in an instant; each one lays out his strength on
his handspike, and the windlass goes briskly round with the loud
cry of "Yo heave ho! Heave and pawl! Heave hearty ho!" But with us,
at this time, it was all dragging work. No one went aloft beyond
his ordinary gait, and the chain came slowly in over the windlass.
The mate, between the knight-heads, exhausted all his official
rhetoric, in calls of "Heave with a will!" - "Heave hearty, men! -
heave hearty!" - "Heave and raise the dead!" - "Heave, and away!"
etc., etc.; but it would not do. Nobody broke his back or his
hand-spike by his efforts. And when the cat-tackle-fall was strung
along, and all hands - cook, steward, and all - laid hold, to cat the
anchor, instead of the lively song of "Cheerily, men!" in which all
hands join in the chorus, we pulled a long, heavy, silent pull,
and - as sailors say a song is as good as ten men - the anchor came
to the cat-head pretty slowly. "Give us 'Cheerily!'" said the
mate; but there was no "cheerily" for us, and we did without it.
The captain walked the quarterdeck, and said not a word. He must
have seen the change, but there was nothing which he could notice
officially.
We sailed leisurely down the coast before a light fair wind, keeping
the land well aboard, and saw two other missions, looking like blocks
of white plaster, shining in the distance; one of which, situated on
the top of a high hill, was San Juan Campestrano, under which vessels
sometimes come to anchor, in the summer season, and take off hides.
The most distant one was St. Louis Rey, which the third mate said
was only fifteen miles from San Diego. At sunset on the second day,
we had a large and well wooded headland directly before us, behind
which lay the little harbor of San Diego. We were becalmed off this
point all night, but the next morning, which was Saturday, the 14th
of March, having a good breeze, we stood round the point, and hauling
our wind, brought the little harbor, which is rather the outlet of a
small river, right before us. Every one was anxious to get a view
of the new place. A chain of high hills, beginning at the point,
(which was on our larboard hand, coming in,) protected the harbor
on the north and west, and ran off into the interior as far as the
eye could reach. On the other sides, the land was low, and green,
but without trees. The entrance is so narrow as to admit but one
vessel at a time, the current swift, and the channel runs so near to
a low stony point that the ship's sides appeared almost to touch it.
There was no town in sight, but on the smooth sand beach, abreast,
and within a cable's length of which three vessels lay moored,
were four large houses, built of rough boards, and looking like the
great barns in which ice is stored on the borders of the large ponds
near Boston; with piles of hides standing round them, and men in
red shirts and large straw hats, walking in and out of the doors.
These were the hide-houses.
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